#and in season 4 the guys fight a monster that is the literal embodiment of depression. am i missing something?

[giantkillerjack]

Infinity Train isn't the best counterpart to Last of Us on positive representation. Remember the only explicitly Neurodivergent character in Infinity Train became a villain and died brutally on screen?

No, I don't remember. But what I do remember is that the entire core concept of the show is basically "a train that puts people through magical therapy." And so I remember that nearly every lead character is clearly dealing with some form of mental illness or another. I don't need every character to be explicitly diagnosed onscreen to know that the show is chock-full of neurodivergent characters, so I'm quite genuinely not sure what you mean. Have I missed something?

[prettylittlebrownskingyal]

Anime recs (some of my personal faves, not the public opinion, obviously):

About sports:

-Haikyuu (I am caught all the way up to season 4 and I have never been more passionate about volleyball in my life, not even when I played it)

-Run the Wind (it's about running but also...friendship? and motivation to follow your dreams?? I mostly just recall relating to some of the lazier characters and sensing the brotherhood vibes. It feels slow at first, but if you get invested you realize that you've binged the whole thing.)

-Free! & Free! Eternal Summer (you wanna get emotional attached to a bunch of teenage swimmers? I don't know why all these sports animes are about guy groups, but here's one about some divas -I mean swimmers. Quite the lil quaint group of nuggets, I gotta tell ya.)

About magic/supernatural

-Sailor Moon (need I say more? She's our queen and we are never too old to watch her steadily turn from crybaby to warrior of the people. If you know, you know. FIGHTING EVEIL BY MOONLIGHT-!!)

-Avatar: the Last Airbender (technically counts as an anime. Holds my entire childhood, every personality trait I have...for sure came from characters in this show. Iconic. Never loses its charms. Lots of magical realism that is centered on the natural elements of the planet, some spiritualism too. Appa is reason enough to watch this show.)

-Legend of Korra (technically a sequel storyline to Avatar: the Last Airbender, but...it's SO DIFFE R E NT. I was at first put off by my lack of OG characters, but there are so many references embedded in there, and you get to meet everybody's kids and grandkids. Also Korra? The embodiment of female pride and power, nothing will forsake her for long. Kinda STRESSFUL how many obstacles the writers create in a single season...let alone 4.)

-Inuyasha (on oldie but a goodie. Technically the first anime I ever saw...*sigh* ah youth...Anyway, it'sset in feudal Japan, but there's time travel so you won't feel too out of place. There are of course demons and magical priestesses and demon hunters and cranky, frankly exhausted, old women. Has a quality plot line and great characters. There is a new sequel show airing about the future of the characters and their bloodlines, I've only seen an episode or two but the nostalgia alone made me want to weep.)

-Fairy Tail (a CLASSIC. It has magic and dragons and FAERIES and found family and is so loveably chaotic, also: hype af fight scenes)

-Soul Eater (another chaotic group of teens that fight impossible battles, the intro music always hits hard for nO rEASON, a little more blood and angst but not like not enough to cancel out the immense joy/annoyance that is Excalibur)

-Noragami (a new take on the concept of how gods are created, sad boi hours have started, wholesome main characters, the graphics are beautiful, some of the monsters can be a tad creepy - but I'm a wimp so it could just be me)

-Bungou Stray Dogs (I HAVE ADOPTED ATSUSHI. HE IS MY SON NOW, THANK YOU FOR COMING. The art style is one I enjoy, very crisp lines and a good variation in character designs. The protagonist is named Atsushi and he is a golden child who must be protected yet allowed to flourish at all times. There is detective work, some great fights, lots of random character flaws, OH and honey the story line is TWISTY!!)

-My Hero Academia/Boko no Hero Academia (this is the show where my broccoli son goes THROUGH IT literally the WHOLE TIME. A great story of the underdog, and the variety of characters and powers are...*chef's kiss*, makes me want to lowkey live in this universe but the amount of villians... gurl it'stoo much for my weak heart smh)

- Cannon Busters (okay, so I know people have mixed opinions on this one. Lemme say this: the intro and outro SLAP, point blank periodtt. The characters are diverse in color and abilities, it's like wild west meets technofuture meets medieval magic war times. The plotline is very all over the place, but hey it's the journey right. If you don't love SAM and Casey by the end of episode 1 you're doing it wrong.)

-BNA: Brand New Animal (the art style is so freaking cool yet cute we luv to see it. The world building is pretty good, basically it'slike Zootopia, but there are way more issues with this island o animals that have a human form half the time. Our main character is determined and just a tad naive, there is a wolf man with a pet crow and we're all okay with that)

-Sirius the Jaegar (straight up, I have no idea how my sister and I binged the whole show in like 2 days, but we did. Great fight scenes, the is blood but... that's because there are vampire-esque creatures also. The main character's childhood got done dirty, but go off on your origin story I guess.)

About slice of life:

- My Little Monster/Tonari no Kaibustu-kun (a wholesome high school romance with oddballs left and right, but you just wanna root for 'em y'know? A good wind down show. There's a chicken in it.)

- (Kaichou wa) Maid-Sama (an unconventional and lowkey erratic main heroine, the love interest seems weird but you'll adore him by the end, just simple high school shenanigans with ridiculously dramatic conflicts)

Phew, that was kinda long 😓 but those are just some animes that I have watched thoroughly off the top off my head to give you a good variety of options. Let me know if you already have seem any of these. Hope this helps you fight off boredom and repetition. Please tell me your faves, I love hearing about new shows!! 🤩 (And btw, my sleep patterns wrecked, I've been going to sleep at like 3AM 😅 Hahaha, send help.)

love love LOVE THIS!! Thank you for sharing babe ❤️❤️❤️ i actually haven’t watched that much anime so i’m glad to get a rundown on some good recs!

also!! i feel u!! team no sleep ftw

[theliterateape]

I Like to Watch | The Walking Dead

by Don Hall

I have this great idea. At the end of Return of the King, following the battle to destroy Sauron, we follow Aragorn and Gandalf as they continue battle lesser evils in Middle Earth. You know, maybe like a Balrog with delusions of grandeur or an evil faction of dwarves. In the meantime, Sauron, instead of being destroyed, is held captive and we get to know him a little better. Maybe we extend the saga to show his backstory and exactly how he became evil?

Hell, we could milk the battles for years!

No?

How about this: a The Princess Bride follow-up wherein Count Rugen survives the sword fight between he and Inigo. Then, later, the two form a bond and travel the countryside looking wrongs to right.

NO?!

OK: After Luke Skywalker kills the Emperor and we spend three prequels on the backstories of both Vader (as a kid) and the Emperor (as a Senator), we jump forward in time. There is a new threat with a bad guy not quite as bad as Vader because he's so openly conflicted and kinda horny for the female Luke. Then, when things come to a head at the third sequel, we bring back the Emperor so we can kill him AGAIN!!

No. You're right. That is a shitty idea.

At the (long) tail-end of the pandemic, the rest of the 10th season of The Walking Dead resumed airing and I found myself undeniably un-inspired. I didn't really care much for The Whisperers and after they bumped Rick Grimes off and then carted him away on a helicopter, the show sort of fizzled. I couldn't figure out what was missing (besides Rick) so I decided to go back to the beginning and watch the whole thing again.

The zombie trope goes back a ways into horror history. The concept of the dead re-animating and going for our living throats has elements of the Golem, aspects of Frankenstein's Monster, and a historical basis in the slavery practices of the French in Haiti.

The zombie archetype, as it appeared in Haiti and mirrored the inhumanity that existed there from 1625 to around 1800, was a projection of the African slaves’ relentless misery and subjugation. Haitian slaves believed that dying would release them back to lan guinée, literally Guinea, or Africa in general, a kind of afterlife where they could be free. Though suicide was common among slaves, those who took their own lives wouldn’t be allowed to return to lan guinée. Instead, they’d be condemned to skulk the Hispaniola plantations for eternity, an undead slave at once denied their own bodies and yet trapped inside them—a soulless zombie.

In 1968, George Romero shot (on a budget of $114,000) what was originally entitled Night of the Flesh Eaters and later renamed Night of the Living Dead. He didn't refer to his walking dead as "zombies" but as "ghouls." 

The grainy black and white film was far more than a gruesome horror flick—it was an allegory for the protests of both the Vietnam War and the riots of those fighting for Civil Rights. Later, his sequel of sorts, Dawn of the Dead, is another social satire disguised as gore flick with the zombies (he now called them zombies) acting as stand-ins for the suburban consumerist ethos. 1985's Day of the Dead is an allegory about the mindless authoritarianism of the military. Land of the Dead was a satire of class division; Diary of the Dead spoofed the age of blogging and YouTube.

What were the zombies? How did they come to be? Romero gives us a comet. A cosmic incident with no more explanation. This gives the satirical representation the foreground.

Along came more zombie apocalypse movies: Re-animator, Dead Alive, 28 Days Later. Certainly a lot more including Night of the Creeps and Zombie. In 2004, we get Zach Snyder's brilliant re-make of Dawn of the Dead. This list of the undead had as much in common with the classic atomic monsters as they did the dinosaurs in Jurassic Park—these ghouls were created by man. These were the inevitable result of humankind's hubris and god-complex. We created the end of the world and now must make sense of our creation.

In 2003, Robert Kirkman and Tony Moore co-created a long-running comic series published by Image Comics: The Walking Dead. In 2010, AMC picked up the comic for a television series of the same name and what set these zombies apart from the previous strain is that one didn't have to be bitten in order to turn. These zombies represented a natural human-wide disease that re-animated anyone who died. Like a bizarre metaphor for Purgatory, becoming undead was inevitable for all living people. This created a completely different dynamic for those surviving.

Which brings us up to speed.

I was hooked to TWD for the first four seasons. The conclusion of the Governor arc was satisfying and everything about the prison was exceptional but I was exhausted by the time they arrived at Terminus. The thing became taxing to follow and I believe I'd hit my limit. I dropped away until I was talking to a friend who loved the show and she told me that Negan was the best villain she'd ever seen.

I rejoined the Grimes Gang with Season 5. Terminus cannibals. Again, I got sucked in. The tragic end of Bob. The back-and-forth conflict of Gabriel. The whole Beth in the hospital with the corrupt cops was weak but that may have been because I don't find Beth remotely interesting. Then we get to Alexandria and the dynamic between the people so blind to the world that they're having cocktail parties and the group who have endured almost comical loss and tragedy makes for some excellent storytelling.

Then came Season 6, episode 4 He's Not Here. 

Both loosely connected to the journey of our merry band yet set completely apart, this standalone episode finds us with Morgan (the extraordinary Lennie James) being brought back from the insanity he's afflicted with by Eastman (an equally wonderful John Carroll Lynch). Eastman slowly brings Morgan back from the edge.

A psychiatrist, Eastman tells the story of his prison practice. He explains that he has worked with over 800 incarcerated patients and only one was irredeemably evil. He tells him of that patient, Crighton Dallas Wilton. While a model prisoner in the eyes of the prison staff, Eastman saw Wilton for what he was, an evil, manipulative psychopath. When the time for Wilton's parole came up, Eastman was the one to interview him and it was here that Wilton realized that Eastman had seen through his facade and attempted to kill him. 

Later, we find out exactly how evil Wilton was and how Eastman came to be who he is in this apocalyptic world.

This episode is beautifully done and, upon re-watching the whole thing all over again, stands out for one important aspect. Eastman tells us that in this world of heroes and villains surrounded by the undead, there is only one truly evil person to watch out for.

The Governor isn't evil. He's an asshole. An authoritarian. He's also insane from grief which has driven him to become a villain. He's no more or less brutal in many ways than Rick. The Terminus cannibals are likewise justified in their choices as sickening and horrifying as they may be.

Eastman is warning us of true evil on the horizon.

That evil is Negan.

From the moment we see him (Jeffrey Dean Morgan) and his barbed wire bat, Lucille, he is the embodiment of gleeful malevolence. He is brutal and he fucking loves it. He kills both Abraham and Glenn with such casual smug pleasure that the fact that he just offed a beloved character who has been on the journey since the second episode of the entire franchise only hurts more.

Negan is the anti-Rick. No conflict within himself, convinced that he is righteous in his path with so little regard for even his own Saviors (his 'relationship' to Dwight is a thing of remarkable cruelty). It isn't even the body count (both the Governor and the Terminus gang kill more onscreen) but his enjoyment in brutalizing people, teasing them into submission, then gutting them on the street is Hannibal Lecter territory.

Negan is the one truly evil man Eastman warns us about.

In my marathon from the start, I realized sometime during Season 8—I had no interest in seeing any more following Negan's defeat. Having seen the episodes before, I didn't want to see the character redeemed. I didn't want him to be at all relatable. I wanted Rick to kill him and for a sense of closure.

Now take a peek at Season 8. The writers wrote the end of the series in this one. The alliance of Alexandria, The Hilltop, and The Kingdom against The Saviors. Eugene finds his safe place and Gabriel struggles to redeem himself. Fucking Carl dies! Rick beats Negan one-on-one in a field and cuts his throat with a piece of stained glass. FINIS. OVER. DONE, for chrissakes.

Carl's death means nothing if the ending isn't peace. I'll be honest, the first time I watched Carl die, I didn't much care. He wasn't a heavy weight character in my mind. The second time, I bawled like a baby because, in a few weeks, I watched him go from scared kid in the camp when Rick (presumed dead) strolls in to the young man sparring with Negan. Carl's vision of Rick's future is the end. Except for the Negan part. FUCK THAT. Negan doesn't get to survive.uck that

Rick cuts his throat. He doesn't instruct Sadiq to save him. Negan dies. Maggie gets her revenge. Rick makes his "a better world" speech. Cut to black.

HBO’s Six Feet Under, The Sopranos, The Leftovers. All could have continued following their obvious and arguably brilliant endings but they didn’t. Game of Thrones could’ve just stopped as soon as the Night King is defeated but they couldn’t help themselves and tarnished the legacy of one of the most watched television series in history. I loved Lost all the way up until they explained everything poorly.

I get it. AMC needs the cash cow. Lots of people employed so they just have to continue the tale but, man, when you get to an ending that good, walk away.